


Ways of Holding Still

by BlackEyedGirl



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Collars, Kink Without Plot, M/M, Multi, Rape/Non-con References, Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 05:30:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/427394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackEyedGirl/pseuds/BlackEyedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will surfaces from the mission with his head not quite right. Ethan makes it worse before he makes it better. Benji and Jane help with the second part. Will tries to let them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ways of Holding Still

**Author's Note:**

> **Content notes:** Perceived threat of non/con (Brandt/OMC), submission both confused and then discussed, collars as a disguise and then not. References to Will's issues post-Croatia. As ever, ask if you need more information, concrit is welcome.
> 
> This is mostly kink + feels - plot. And also - sex. I don't really know how that happened.

His role in this is essentially to sit down quietly and do what he's told. Everything else is costume and location. Will should keep his mind fixed on the essentials, on the mission, but in truth it would be so much easier to play this role if he could let himself sink. He's not doing anything here but giving Ethan a cover for being in the club; he's basically a doll in a leather collar. And now that Ethan has gone into the meet with their mark, leaving Will and presumably at least one other boy here in the room outside, he really has nothing to do. He's not providing any useful intel: he'd been blindfolded before they were led through the warren of hallways from the back of the club. He could find his way back okay but he's supposed to be out here on his knees waiting peacefully. Ethan had settled his hand on the back of Will's neck and pushed down until his knees hit the carpet. “Stay right here,” Ethan had said. “ _Quiet_. And be good.” That was probably him staying in character but Will is not always certain of his ability to read his team leader.

Yesterday afternoon, for example, when Ethan had mooted this plan, he had said, seemingly seriously, “You can take point if you want.”

Will had rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure.” This was only ever going to play out one way.

“It doesn't have to be you,” Ethan said again today, when Will's fingers were tangling on the buckle of the collar and Ethan had to intervene.

“Well, it can't be Benji,” Will said. “Jane could do it I guess but the cover works better with a guy. And you're not exactly...” Ethan's one of the best IMF have when it comes to walking straight into places like he belongs there, or diving off buildings, or not flinching when assassins threaten people around him. Will has seen no evidence that he would be any good at being silent and taking instruction.

Benji said, “What do you mean it can't be me?”

Will looked at himself in the mirror and met the eyes of Benji’s reflection. “Are you seriously trying to argue yourself into this outfit?”

“No?”

Jane had smirked and taken over fixing Will's hair. “Good answer.”

But Ethan had only looked at Will. “And this is okay for you?”

Will shrugged. “Assuming this is the worst thing I’m going to be asked to do in the name of the IMF today? Sure.”

He had known they were worried about him – they let him pick the codenames, which is a sure sign – but they’re always a little cautious about situations that leave one of them helpless. That was probably why Ethan had volunteered; Ethan has no hang-ups about blindfolds or handcuffs, heights or tight spaces. Ethan has maybe one hang-up and he’d taken care of that with such brutal efficiency that Will still has nightmares about a body he knows to be unreal. Will has more than a few hang-ups. But about this mission, he’s still sure. There's a band of leather around his throat, and he can’t see anything right now, but the comms are on and Benji’s got the cameras. There _seem_ to be cameras everywhere except the asset’s study, which is hopefully what Will is sitting outside. So they’re fine. Everything’s fine. There are four other people in this room. One of them is sitting or kneeling down low on the other side of the room. One is in the doorway. The other two are walking circles around the room, sharp even steps like they’ve done it a hundred thousand times. One of them – the bigger one, or heavier anyway, from the sound of his footsteps, is walking a little closer to Will every time. 

Now this presents Will with a problem. He’s not in the right headspace to figure out if he should move or not. Ethan told him to stay put. No matter which way he tweaks that spectrum, he was told to stay still. He’s on the job but he’s in role. Will moves his hands behind his back and, when the man starts walking away again, slides his right hand back to get a better idea how close he’s sitting to the wall. 

The guard steps back towards him and Will freezes. There is a pressure on his wrist, light but threatening not to be. He stays still and waits until the foot is removed; he has no desire to fight his way out with a broken arm. Will listens to Ethan in the other room, getting close to the information on the buyer. The guards in the room with Will are having a whispered discussion. One of them – not the bigger one – walks behind him, drops down to a crouch and ties Will’s wrists. He lets them.

“Don’t move,” he is told again, as if it matters. Ethan already told him to stay still. 

They start walking across the room again, from one side to the other. This time, ending up close to Will progresses to standing right in front of him. He can’t read their expressions, doesn’t know if they’re just being assholes or if Ethan and Will have been made. If he reacts by standing up and punching one of them, they’ll be made either way. The guard steps closer again, close enough that Will can feel the heat of him, the brush of fabric against his face. For a second he’s reaching for a safeword he hasn’t used in years, but Ethan is close to being done and Will won’t end the mission by overreacting. 

The guard is looming over him, maybe just testing to see what Will is going to do with his nose pressed into the seam of the man’s thin pants. Will doesn’t speak; he makes one small unhappy noise and then Jane’s voice is in his ear. “Acton, what the-? Was that Ellis?” She’s in position outside the club, ready to clear them an exit. 

Benji mutters, “I looked away for _one minute_. Getting eyes on him. Um. Okay, Currer this might be a good time to finish up and get the two of you the hell out of there.”

Ethan laughs, still in character. “Yes, of course.”

Benji says, “Bell, two minutes. Ellis, counting down from three, then you’re going to have to come up swinging. Okay?”

Will nods, slight as he can make it. Benji will pick it up. He slides his fingers between the loose knots around his wrists.

He hears Ethan at the door. 

Benji counts: “Three, two, one. Go.” 

Will stands, getting an elbow to the guard’s stomach and rising. He hears the thud of the body drop and then there are hands on his face. Will reacts without thinking, ducking away and scrambling for a grip on the other person.

Ethan snaps, “It’s me, calm down.” The blindfold is pulled away and Will can meet his eyes. 

From Jane’s end of the comm, he can hear slamming noises. She’s making them a way out.

“You got the name?” Will asks.

“I got it,” Ethan says. “Now let’s go.”

Benji calls them the route, and Jane has only left them a few guards left to knock out. It’s easy.

When they get to the van, Jane throws him a jacket and Will shrugs it on quickly. Ethan undoes the collar and pulls away with it, glaring at Will. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“What?”

Jane growls, “Ethan.”

“No,” Ethan says, “I’m curious why I had to find out you needed an exit from Jane, who wasn’t anywhere near you.”

Will shakes his head. “You told me to stay quiet. I was staying in-.”

“I didn’t tell you to sit back and-.”

“ _Ethan_ ,” Jane says again.

Ethan takes a step back from him, leaning against the inside of the van. “Benji, you get anything on the name yet?”

Benji slides back a tablet screen to Ethan, who gives it a cursory glance before passing it on to Will. Will looks at it, scanning over the information. Ethan goes to ride shotgun alongside Benji; Jane hangs over the edge of their seats. Benji glances at Will in the mirror before pulling out into the traffic. Will can hear him murmur, “Did you even _look_ at him before you started giving him bloody grief over …?”

They get back to the hotel and Will’s hands have progressed from a slight tremor to being pulled into fists he can’t unmake.

Ethan, in turn, has progressed to concern. “You get that I would have been out of there if I’d known you needed a save.”

“I didn’t _know_ if I needed a save,” Will answers. “I couldn’t- there was a- I couldn’t parse the scenario. I couldn’t see it, and I knew Benji was on comms and one of you would hear and then you could tell me what was… So clearly I read that wrong and I screwed up the call but I did genuinely think that… Sorry.”

Ethan is standing a few metres to the other side of Will. In the corner of Will’s eye he can see Ethan lean back to look at the ceiling, like maybe he doesn’t know what he did to end up with these people.

Jane says, “We got the name, no one was hurt. As far as our missions go, that was more of a success than usual.”

Benji adds, “Except for how Will’s still freaking out.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Will says.

“You’re freaking out a bit.”

Will lets that silence hang there for a moment. “A bit, yeah.” Used to be, he wouldn’t have acknowledged that much. But the mission’s on pause for now and these guys have seen him through worse than this.

“Was it the guard,” Ethan asks, “or the whole thing?”

“It was- combination of stuff. I couldn’t work out if- it’s not good to go halfway down. Makes it harder to come up again with your head on straight. If I’d been all the way down I might not have cared about the guy but I wouldn’t have remembered to get my wrists undone.”

Ethan asks, “He tied your hands?”

“Not _well_ , or anything. I couldn’t shift the blindfold cause he’d notice but I knew you were gonna need my hands free when you got out.” Ethan is shaking his head now, which Will can’t read at all.

“You snapped back pretty quickly when Benji said go,” Jane says.

Will rolls his head to one side. “Most of the way, yeah.” He’s still raw, as much from Ethan’s disappointment as the head-screwing the guard was playing at. Will can’t take much of Ethan’s disappointment in either space. He had been – they had all been - getting better. But he’s not done yet.

Ethan walks around the couch to look at Will properly. He sits down and after a moment, taps Will’s knee with the discarded collar. “Would this help?” He asks the question neutrally, like he’s doing a comm check: yes/no. 

That’s what makes Will properly consider the question. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s been- it used to, but that was a while ago. Before Croatia.”

“And since then?”

Will runs his hand though his hair, still messed up with product. “Well, after that there wasn’t really any amount of head-patting and ‘good boy’s that was gonna fix anything.”

Ethan exhales through his nose, mouth pressed closed. After a moment he says, “You want to take a run at fixing it now?”

Will darts a glance at Benji on the other side of the room, and Jane sitting across from Ethan. He must look pretty bad if Ethan is offering it flat, if the other two aren’t reacting to the offer at all. Will says, “I’ll be fine, it’s not like I can’t- I’m honestly pretty used to getting myself right again.”

“Well, sure,” Benji says, “no one’s claiming you can’t. But it seems a bit, I don’t know, like a waste of energy, trying to get-.”

“You can struggle up to the surface yourself,” Jane fills in, “or you can let Ethan – let us – hang onto you for a while.” 

Ethan had pulled him out of the waters before. Ethan’s hands are cupped solidly around the circle of leather. Will’s hands are still in fists beside his legs. He ducks his head, doesn’t look up at Ethan. “Give me a second.”

“You’re good,” Ethan says. “We’re all fine.”

Will slips off the couch, still looking at the floor. “Can you get the buckle for me?”

Ethan sighs, something shaky in it this time. “Shouldn’t have let you try to do it yourself the first time anyway.” He runs his hands down the back of Will’s neck to settle on his shoulders. And then he has the collar in them, turning it over once in front of Will’s eyes and setting the leather against his throat. “Red for stop.” Will shakes his head once – don’t stop – and then Ethan’s fingers are working the buckle at the back of his neck, brushing his fingertips over the bones of Will’s spine. He leans down close, so his mouth is at Will’s ear. “Good boy.” 

Will shudders, down through to his chest, to his thighs, to the soles of his feet. His fingers uncurl, resting flat on his knees. He lets his head drop. He lets himself drop, no comms, nothing else to think about right now.

“You did so good today,” Ethan says. “You’re always so good. You just need to let go.”

“Try…” he murmurs.

“I know you do. And then I go and do something like- you did the right thing. You always do.”

“Ethan-.”

“Sssh. It’s okay. We’ve got you. I’ll bring you back up when you’re ready, you just let me know. For the moment… everything’s okay.”

“All good,” Will says.

Ethan rubs circles on the base of Will’s neck, pushing fingers through his hair. “All good. You need anything?”

Will turns a little, so he can press his face against Ethan’s leg, curl one hand around Ethan’s shin. When the only repercussion of that is Ethan’s hand slipping to his shoulder, Will closes his eyes. “I’m good.”

Benji seems very far away when he says, “See, that actually looks comfortable.”

Will opens his eyes again, half-lidded enough that Benji is still blurry. He slips further down, pushing his arm away from his body. 

Ethan’s hum sounds like laughter. “Benj, if you want to keep Will company…?”

“I’m not saying I-.”

“Come here.”

“And, now, that works.” Will knows; that’s the voice that works on him too. Benji half-crawls across the floor, bringing a book with him, ending up sprawled on his back with his shoulders against Will’s thigh. He drags Will’s loose arm over him, and rests his paperback on his knees. “I was right. Comfy.”

From somewhere above his head, Will hears Jane rearrange herself. From the ‘oof’, it sounds like she’s draped her legs over Ethan’s lap. Her shoes drop in two thuds over the other end of the couch. 

Ethan hooks his finger in the ring of the collar. He doesn’t go anywhere with it, doesn’t pull or push. He just stays there. Will takes a slow breath and lets himself be still.


End file.
